The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1887-08-11
'ONLY A TENTH"
@<With Him, Worth All the Other,
Ten Times Told"

Honoria, heiress Of Cyprian Wentworth,
late of Dernside, was sorting papers and
Hnburnt correspondence he had left when
summoned with such small warning twelve
months ago from the home they two had
peacefully inhabited since her childhood.
Every scrap of his own writing she saved;
she had so little of it, for Mr.. Wentworth,
proud and Grabbed as some called him,
though always kind to this one child, had
kept up but rare intercourse with the outer
world. Except for exact accounts with his
steward Honoria scarcely knew him to take
pen in hand once a week, and missivcs to
him were rarer still; so the task she had
put of through her first Borrowing year
promised to be light one, till one bit of
note paper suddenly made it very heavy
the heaviest load her days had ever known.
She might have burned it with the rest,
this fortune-freighted missive, but line
Or two in Mr.. Wentworth's own hand, writ
ten crosswise on the sheet, attracted her
attention.
Answered in the negative same day as
received. c. W., August 4, 1SS-" this
postscript ran.
August" Only a month before he
diedi Tears filled Honoria's eyes as she
glanced down this, probably the last COM
before the tears could fall, another express
sion than that OF grief, one of intense
amazement, incredibly, fear, swept over
her counteuance.
White and scared she stumbled to her
fathers seat, by the old library table, and,
with her head leaning dizzly on her trcm-
bling hands, read over and over again
words which utterly COMPOUNDED her.
<'You must be conscious, my dear
brother" ran the lines addressed to
Cyprian Wentworth, to him whom she had
called Father" who to the best of her
knowledge had no tie of kindred but her
Self-"Y on must be conscious sometimes,
think, that the course you elected to take
towards Hester and myself has been a
harsh one. We have both of US made close
acquaintance with poverty, since that week
when you gave US our mothers small por-
ton, and told US that of your own far larger
inheritance we should have no share what
ever, come what might. But neither of us
would have asked you to recant syllable,
as far as money goes, for our own sakes
alone. II is for our children that | now
write spokeswoman for all, for Hester
has long been invalided; and for their
Young and unoffending sal1es l ask: Will
you not recall the sentence of six-and-
twenty years agol Will you not put out
helping hand, ever so little, to them, il not
to US, your sisters, who, surely, in the
struggles of our widowed lives, have paid
heavily for having thwarted your wishes
concerning theml Will you not q must
say as once used), dear Cyprian, give
just fraction Of the wealth We hear you
are amassing for an adopted daughter,
absolutely an alien by birth, to assist up
a. q u
worlds ladder your own near kinsfolkl If
YOU can not forgive US mothers, will you
not help our boysp
Suddenly a thought struck her. A ring
Mt the bell brought her own maid to the
library. a hasty order fetched the now
seldom-used brougham to the door. At the
sight of this Mrs. Crosbie, the rector's
wife, who, with all her brood, had at
Honoria's request taken up her residence
at Dernside for the many months their par
sonage was rebuilding, hurried to the hall
from her own wing of the old house, ask
ing what journey its young mistress was
now bound on.
'tOnly to Rotherheld,n pale Honoria an
severed. 81 have been looking over-over
papa's papers -"
"And vexing yourself, poor child" said
Mrs. Crosbie, putting her arm round her as
they walked to the carriage.
''And want to consult Mr.. Dean about
some thing" Then on her six-mile drive
she was soon speeding.
1t was evening when she came back, aud
this is what she got for her pains: The
story which sent her questioning to Rother-
field was absolutely true, though not sin
gle person living at Dernside had sus-
pected it. Native of a Southern home, Mr.
Wentworth's family affairs had been a
sealed book to his neighbors, where he had
purchased his property twelve years be-
fore. Only to his lawyer, and to him but
recently, when his last will was made, had
it been known that his brief married life,
passed chiefly on the Continent, had been
childless, and that Honoria, inheritress of
all he possessed, was but the daughter of
a young officer and pretty, penniIess girl
whom he persuaded to make a runaway
match from school But so it was; Mr..
Wentworth, always man Of impulse, had
CHANGED on the young couple when the girl
mother was dying, her husband just or
-dered abroad TO the active service, in which
he fell Tne child, whose very existence
was load OF pain to the oung parents, he
adopted from its infancy, giving it his
name, making it his own by every possible
legal tie, and spending on it all the tender
ness OF a disposition which knew well how
70 DC kind. If not opposed